Looking Through My Own Filters…
My Partial Reflection
Social Artistry & Culture
36 months ago
I skimmed through Nancy White’s blog entry she posted right after her session and her comment on “social artistry” caught my attention. I wonder about how this applies to online communities that have no association with any physical or other organizational entities, such as opensource communities. Many people see the potential for similar communities for learning and education. I wonder about organizational culture in general. I reflect on the Japanese documentary/discussion show I watched the other day for the same theme.
In the show, the participants in a round table watched some video clips that showed a number of foreign, non-Japanese companies adapting “Kaizen” system wholeheartedly and succeeding in amazing positive outcomes. All participants were flabbergasted because in Japan during the “lost decade,” many Japanese corporations moved away from the traditional life-long employment practice and tried to adapt American-style meritocracy instead. In the new system, permanent employee, non-permanent employee, or temporary employee classes are clearly divided that many companies no longer have the same culture where kaizen system and culture flourished in the past. In that old culture, many Japanese actively engaged in learning new things with their work context in mind by attending workshops even on the weekends. According to the participants on the show, that group knowledge approach cultivated over the years and somewhat in their DNA and it is not entirely lost. However, the new organizational culture or system certainly does not encourage nor cultivate.
Later on, one participant voiced that Japanese need to come up with their own meritocracy that encourages the new ideas from bottom-up leading to many interesting innovations. And they actually watched some examples of that in Japan.
I’m all for bottom-up approaches, whatever forms it may take, over the traditional top-down management system. The traditional approach lacks actual know-how of making things happen while they may have gorgeous abstract policies. In the context of some of the courses in higher education, the emerging technologies can create additional spaces where you can bridge many gaps between what they say they teach in their course syllabus and various sharing and communications, and other learning activities that need to bring students’ learning.
Different Learning Outcomes
010 months ago
I had less than 2 weeks, including my precious weekend, to make the due date for a grant proposal that was set at the end of June. Luckily, we made it in time, but it was quite a struggle to put together a literature review that accompanied the proposal. In order to read and digest relevant articles I selected, I used Mendeley on my laptop, and iAnnotate on my iPad, working back and forth between two applications. iAnnotate is a superior tool for annotating and making notes right on the articles. I felt like carrying a pile of articles on which I could highlight and make notes in a wide range of styles. This is normally my comfortable ways of reading and researching. Yet, it’s all organized and indexed with iAnnotate, so it did not get as messy as it could have been if it were actual papers. And I didn’t waste any papers on my research!
When it came to the time of making a bibliography, I searched Mendeley pool and cut & paste the citation given in APA style. Unfortunately, all the citations I compiled with Mendeley had to be corrected by my co-investigator. The APA style given by Mendeley is APA 5th edition and I needed the latest, the 6th edition. Mendeley’s Word 2008 plug-in was not working for my computing environment, so I couldn’t use it either. I also used Zotero as well and it worked very well. So in order to complete the literature review section of the proposal, I was juggling between my MacBook Pro and iPad back and forth, between different applications and browsers (Zotero only works with Firefox for now).
Subjective sense of working a literature review is always frustrating and difficult. This fact is always the same despite all the computing devices and applications that were in my disposal. I mainly worked on the couch in the TV room and did read a number of articles in my bed.
I could say that I engaged in mobile learning during the preparation of the proposal, but it is not so convincing if it actually was. I did use all mobile devices and applications in order to construct the proposal. However, this outcome format is nothing new. Whatever tools I use to develop the proposal doesn’t really matter. Either ways, it would come out more or less the same, the same format and same function, and we expect the same outcome. Prior to doing research to develop a literature review, my co-investigator and I had a brainstorming discussion @ Starbucks, and we sat together and went through the draft to finalize it. These are face-to-face interactions that are important parts of the enterprise.
In order to say, yes we are involved in “mobile learning,” however, I feel that there should be something completely different outcomes that characterize “mobile learning.” If we are using mobile devices to bring about the things that we always have produced in non-mobile means, then it doesn’t qualify for “mobile learning.” Since the attributes of anytime, anywhere, and geographically dispersed experiences of the learners involved are the characteristics of “mobile learning”, I would like to see a new form of learning community that is possible because of “mobile learning” and also because we share the things uniquely in mobile ways.
But I know that there is individualized mobile learning. But this doesn’t really excite me.
Moving Forward with Mobile Learning
011 months ago
[A] theoretical framework in which to review diverse mobile learning projects in the context of distance learning has been lacking (Park, Y. 2011, p.95).
In general, mobile learning researchers focus broadly defined potentials of mobile technology in education emphasizing the obvious attribute of any time, anywhere characteristic of the technology, and informal learning attributes that facilitate situated, experimental, personalized, or contextualized learning (Ally, 2010; Traxler, 2010; Clough, Jones, McAndrew & Scanlon, 2010).[1] Koole (2001) further analyzed potential dimensions of mobile learning from technical and pedagogy perspectives using the Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME).[2] In this framework, a total of 7 dimensions in mobile learning are delineated taking into consideration of technical, social and personal dimensions, and respective overlapping areas. Koole wants to help practitioners and researchers understand “the complex nature of mobile learning” (p. 40).
Park (2011] points out that “a theoretical framework in which to review diverse mobile learning projects in the context of distance learning has been lacking” (p.95).[3] In order to come up with a pedagogical framework for mobile learning, Park adopts Transactional Distance Theory. I found the concept, “transactional distance,” to be a very useful concept analyzing potentially complex social characteristics of e-learning in the context of formal learning. According to the Theory, the transactional distance of a given learning context is “managed and controlled” by three factors: 1) Structure, 2) Dialogue, and 3) Learner’s Autonomy (p.85-85). Structure defines how the learning program meets the needs of learners, Dialogue defines what kind of the interactions that take place between the learner and the instructor, and among fellow learners, and Leaner’s Autonomy characterizes what degree of freedom the learner has in shaping his/her learning “goals, process, and evaluation.” These factors interplay and shape what kind of learning experiences can develop, thus define what kind of the transactional distance is being shaped in a given learning context.
The pedagogical prototypes classification for mobile learning that Park came up contains four different types. They are: 1) High Transactional Distance and Socialized Mobile Learning Activity; 2) High Transactional Distance and Individualized Mobile Learning Activity; 3) Low Transactional Distance and Socialized Mobile Learning Activity; and 4) Low Transactional Distance and Individualized Mobile Learning Activity. These prototypes have some potential for more systematic research.
The first type of mobile learning is characterized as “a highly structured program” and “the rules of the game are determined prior to the activity,” but it helps to build negotiating and collaboratory skills among the learners. The second type assumes the development of “well-organized learning materials such as lecture (audio or video) files, reading materials, and vocabulary databases” (p. 93). This type needs to ensure adequate technical and accessibility supports for individualized learning in “different learner environments.” The third type, on the other hand, is not highly structured, and “[t]he most important consideration is to develop a meaningful collaborative task or a complex situation so that higher order thinking, negotiation, evaluation, reflection, debate, competition, and scaffolding can naturally occur” (p.94). Park points out about the third type that “[r]elatively few studies of this type exist. ”Finally, while a teacher controls what is taught and how it is learned in the fourth type, mobile devices facilitate individualized learning.
This pedagogical prototypes classification would be rather useful when one is developing a mobile learning.
References:
[1]Ally, M. (2009). Mobile learning transforming the delivery of education and training. Edmonton: AU Press.
[2]Koole, L. (2009). A model for framing mobile learning. In Mobile Learning Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training by M. Ally (ed.) p. 25 – 47. Edmonton: AU Press.
[3]Park, Y. (2011) A pedagogical framework for mobile learning: Categorizing educational applications of mobile technologies into four types. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Retrieved June 18, 2011, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/791/1788
Assignment #2
011 months ago
In Assignment #2, I am to “describe three significant challenges that you might face in bringing mobile learning to your learning or work place and post or provide a link to your paper in the Angel forum. “
I selected 1) Overall Institutional Infrastructural Support; 2) Seeking the Opportunities to Experiment; and 3) Flexible Collaborations on Campus, as three immediate challenges for incorporating mobile learning in my work place.
Mobile Infrastructure Planning that Supports A Wide Range of Mobile Devices and Activities on Campus:
My sense of possibilities in mobile learning has drastically changed when I started using iPad2 at the beginning of May. While my pick is iPad over iPhone as my learning tool, Stanford medical students experienced it differently.[1] How could that be? Stanford School of Medicine lent iPad to all new students in September 2010. The primary purpose of the project was to cut down the printing cost of 3,700 pages of course materials for each student. The Stanford students were known for avid and rather obsessive iPhone users. So why, the transition to ipad failed?! The students found shortly after the beginning of the semester that the experience of iPad was not so great. Administration, after all, had to go back to print materials to support the course. Despite Stanford’s forward looking and innovative approaches to incorporating the uses of mobile devices on campus, the problem was not so much about ipad as a device but rather not having enough mobile infrastructure to accommodate the massive consumption of bandwidth by all the iPad users on campus. The luck of infrastructural support was apparently the same at Cornell, Princeton, and George Washington University.
When I look around my working environment, there are some iPad users among librarian colleagues. I occasionally see few students with iPad in their hands in my library. I wonder if there is any future mobile infrastructure planning in place to accommodate more use of a wide rage of mobile devices including bandwidth-guzzling tabloids on campus down the road?
Seeking the Opportunities to Experiment:
The big challenge as a learning support professional in higher education is how one can continue seeking and finding the opportunities to try out and experiment with like-minded colleagues on campus. The objective is to make students’ learning more meaningful to themselves. Mobile devices would be one of many tools and applications that can be used for this purpose.
Behind this thinking is the realization that educational institutions need to face a big shift in their educational mindset. According to Haythornthwaite (2010), learning in the digital age is more like expert learning embedded in the communities of practitioners and, in their practices and cultures.[2] Mobile learning would play an important role in the digital age by helping learners accommodate and respond to various situations, circumstances, and contexts of learning.[3] Mobile devices, whatever it may be, therefore could be situated and functioned as important devices to facilitate one’s learning and education in the digital age.
My own recent experience of working with one long-standing foundational research and writing undergraduate course for one Faculty is a case in point. The collaboration of a librarian, writing instructor and the course instructor (the Faculty) became possible with the Summer Course Innovation Fund from Extended Education. In order to convert the course, that was primarily designed as a mass-production course, to a blended-learning model, we analyzed and translated the syllabus of the course to bring about appropriate language, added online instructional materials, online interactions among students, and invited speakers from the field for the class. Although there was no mobile component in this project, in a different course context, it could have been appropriate and worth implementing.
Flexible Collaborations on Campus:
Another challenge is to seek possible collaborations with the faculty or professional colleagues by sharing the common interests of supporting students’ learning on campus. By being knowledgeable about potential mobile or online tools and applications, I could be a resource person in the collaborations. At the same time, as Koole (2009) delineated, considering many factors that affect appropriateness of a given mobile learning model in a given course situation, we would be more productive working in a collaborative manner with fellow colleagues on campus.[5]
The recent issue of Newsletter, Path to Pedagogy, by University Teaching Services, a unit promoting scholarship in teaching and learning at the university where I work, compiled teaching accounts and innovations from many individual teaching faculty members across different disciplines, faculties, and schools. There was no mobile learning represented, but no shortage of teaching innovations on campus. Many teaching faculty members are interested in engaging their students in the subject matters they are learning.
Being an academic librarian, my role was traditionally defined by facilitating the use of library collections and resources in the support of my campus constituencies. Now we are living in the world of information abundance. It became more crucial to facilitate understanding of “why” and “how” of the information use, than simply locating the information or information sources.
We have many learning support professionals on campus. They are housed in different units and departments of the University including Information technology and computing support staff, librarians, writing or study skill instructors, student advocacy staff, and the faculty involved in scholarship in teaching and learning to name the obvious. It would be quite a challenge to build criss-crossed working network among these professionals, but if we can find the right working collaboration on campus in the support of students, we might be able to achieve much more than when we stick ourselves to each unit.
References:
[1] Keller, J. (2011, May 8). The Slow-Motion Mobile Campus – The Digital Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved June 14, 2011, from http://chronicle.com/article/The-Slow-Motion-Mobile-Campus/127380/
[2] Haythornthwaite, C. A. (2010, February 23). New Theories and Perspectives on Learning in the Digital Age. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2142/16311
[3] Koole, L.M. (2009). A Model for Framing Mobile Learning. IN Mobile learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training by M. Alley (ed.) (Chapter 2). Retrieved June 8, 2011, from: http://www.aupress.ca/books/120155/ebook/02_Mohamed_Ally_2009-Article2.pdf
[4] University of Manitoba. University Teaching Services (2011). Path to Pedagogy. Spring 2011. Retrieved: June 13, 2011. From: http://intranet.umanitoba.ca/academic_support/uts/resources/86.html
[5] See [3]. Koole delineated 7 mobile learning intersections to consider when we are designing a mobile learning model: 1) Device Aspect; 2) Learner Aspect; 3) Social Aspect; 4) Device Usability Intersection; 5) Social and Technology Intersection; 6)Interaction Learning Intersection; and 7) Mobile Learning. (Appendix A, p. 45-47, Alley, 2009).
What is Learning?
011 months ago
In the Mobile Learning course discussion (ML11), it turned to whether the nature of what we consider to be “learning” is changing:
Has retention been relegated to rote learning and therefore dated? Does the fact that most of the information we need are available on the mobile device, in our hands or the computer hard disk at home, prevent us from retaining knowledge? Where do you think the future of mobile learning could lead to when we consider what is retained and what is not? When can we apply the “sixth sense” as provided by our mobile devices and when are we allowed not to? Can we ask our job interviewer to wait while we contact our mobile device for a response to his/her question?
We are increasingly facing more complex situations in which we need to come up with appropriate solutions; not necessarily right answers because there is no such a thing as a “right answer” most of the time. The skills that are in demand in the current century are those that bring about certain solutions not just in paper but actually mobilizing like-minded people as well as those with different perspectives or opinions from their own and accomplishing socially meaningful actions. The focus in education should probably be shifted more towards what to do with gathered information, rather than what information one is getting or how much. If we can draw from the Anas’ cooking example, the discussion would be more interesting if people exchange how they improved upon Betty Crocker’s original recipes (although she is not my kind 
) or modified them to meet their needs, for example.
Mobile devices are suited to providing just-in-time information and responses to the right recipients. At the same time, the technology advancing the “sixth sense” creates a lot of noises. In this context, how one filters the flow of information and contributes becomes important, but what is the actual impact one makes is nebulous.
If one is only responding to the incoming information or the information one happens to find, the mechanics itself is not so important . We all need to be educated to have certain values or perspectives with which we can screen what is important and what is not important in a given situation or purpose. So in a job interview situation, the interviewer would be interested in whether the interviewee has a set of values or perspectives that are crucial to carry out the tasks associated with the job. The image of locating the answer to the interview question using a mobile device would come across odd. However, in a different context, this situation might not necessarily be odd. If the job requires a flexible attitude in gathering quick responses from a target group and quickly present the result to the interviewer, it would not be odd, for example.
Rote learning is definitely out, but which rote learning?! I do not rule out everything because I believe that there is a place for repetitious drills and practices for many basic skills.
Relationships & Interactions in Online Spaces
02 years ago
by Asako
in My Partial Reflection
After I completed the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course, I finally had a chance to read some of the Moodle posts that I missed during the course. A fellow course participant, Gus Goncalves, referred to Visitors & Residents presentation video by David White at Oxford University. White’s presentation provides another excellent example of social & cultural perspectives on web 2.0 phenomena. The important point made by his presentation is that if we want to understand how people are approaching digital space, it’s not entirely about technology, nor about skills or ages, either. It’s how people are approaching a given social space. He gives an example of missing the point by offering a Twitter training session. Twitter is social and cultural platform and you can only learn it by actually using it.
Some notes for the presentation are here.
The idea of the continuum of visitors and residents makes a lot of sense. What sort of interactions or relationships are being formed in a given network is very much case by case even when the members happen to be all “residents.” For example, White refers to the importance of the context for defining whether you are a visitor or resident in a given digital space. You can be a visitor in one type of network and a native in the other.
The common or mainstream behavior in the digital space is branding one’s online presence by continuously updating status, feeding pictures, video and updating blog posts, etc. –”feeding the machine.” This can be very banal, as White points out. Connecting to the social network by itself does not necessarily create productive, learning experiences.
- Communal does not mean that people are collaborating and cooperative.
- Participants require a whole lot of other skills such as critical evaluation of research.
We are ultimately talking about social & cultural phenomena. We are often referred by Web 2.0 experts to a collection of Web 2.0 tools like the image below:
This can be a very misleading representation if we are pursuing more productive interactions as learning. The image may be re-enforcing this idea that technical side of the skills and the volume of the tools are far and for most important.
Concept Map for CCK09
02 years ago
by Asako
in My Partial Reflection
Here is a concept map drawn from my experiences of CCK09:
Concept Map – CCK09 – 100%.egg on Aviary.
For a better view, please click the image and browse using “View at Full Size” in the right-hand side panel.
Assignment #2 – Future of Higher Education
02 years ago
by Asako
in My Partial Reflection
After exploring the concept of Connectivism and the role of emerging technologies in this course, media literacy, for me, would be the important keywords for the 21st century education. As Lipton states (2008), “[a]ny form of communication that carries and conveys meaning can be considered a medium of communication.”
Although the emerging technology always dominates the discourse of the day (Mosco, 2004), the skills to critically understand how each medium works and shapes the ways we communicate would be the most significant aspect of our education programs. Kelley & Jenkins (2005) put the function of reading in a historical perspective. They state that what “reading” signifies “has changed over time and in different cultures.” (p.7) The objective of their New Media Literacies Project is to “heighten awareness of the many styles and the meanings of literacy over time.” Similarly, Media Education Project led by Prof. Mark Lipton at the University of Guelph, advocates media literacy education and published a number of atticulating guides for teachers.
I see the possibility for exploring various collaborations in higher education to shape learning and exploratory spaces. These will be possible using both traditional, classroom, or physical face-to-face interactions as well as so called web 2.0, social media technologies. We will find a mixture of traditional course structure and more flexible cross-disciplinary networking space where students use it as a sounding board for their work. The basis of Connectivism is participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006), and by actively exploring the dynamics of learning in participatory spaces (classroom, online, or hybrid), higher education can be the provider of a dynamic space in which modeling of complexity and non-linear learning for students can take place.
The course or learning/exploratory space would be designed and facilitated by a team of “teachers” or “facilitators” including content expert, media specialist or technologist, or anybody else who can contribute to the space. The team can make the learning/exploratory space quite flexible by allowing some creative ways in which the students can negotiate to shape their own learning space. The purpose of the learning/exploratory space would be to encourage “1) self-assessment, 2) sharing the outcomes of learning with peers, 3) various forms of feedback, and 4) evaluation by the teacher.” (Lipton, 2008b) Connectivism is not about acquisition of knowledge, and it emphasizes how we all become responsible for our own learning by actively observing, reflecting, and expressing our ideas in order to share and sharpen up our understandings.
The key characteristic of the 21st century education will be ultimately about students themselves, who develop their own skills to reflect and guide their own thinking and problem-solving skills. The image of teachers standing and lecturing in front of a classroom will eventually disappear, but facilitators, guides, designers, mentors, counselors, peers, and motivators will be occupying the learning/exploratory space along with the students.
Major impediments for moving to this new orientation are the habits and the convention of how courses are constructed, structured and delivered, and how manpower in higher education is organized for teaching. The departmental and disciplinary structure is often the basis of how teaching manpower is being mobilized and the same is also the basis of job security.
Having pointed out the obvious impediments for any change to occur in higher education, there is no shortage of education research in general and e-learning research and discussions. Many higher education practitioners participate in education research collaborating with other teaching faculty members other than Education. For example, Summer 2004 issue of New Directions for Teaching and Learning published various aspects of the decoding the disciplines model. This way of thinking only starts when teaching faculty acknowledge the lack of connection between the students and what the students are expected to learn. The first article lists a series of questions for teaching faculty: 1) What is a bottleneck to learning in this class?; 2) How does an expert do these things?; 3) How can these tasks be explicitly modeled?; 4) How will students practice these skills and get feedback?; 5)What will motivate the students?; 6) How well are students mastering these learning tasks?; 7) How can the resulting knowledge about learning be shared? (Middendorf & Pace, 2004). Many productive thinking and reflection/analysis and experimentation in teaching & learning can come from the bottom up. I end with some optimism and that this bottom-up movement would be the necessary ground work for the future change in higher education.
References:
Kelley, Wyn & Jenkins, Henry (2005). Reading in a Participatory culture – Defining Reading: A (Sort of) Historical Perspective. In Full Expert Voice Section. http://newmedialiteracies.org/educators/
Jenkins, Henry (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture : Media Education of the 21st Century. National Writing Project.
Lipton, Mark (2008a). Media Education: Integration. Media Literacy Project: Research-based monograph series.
(2008b). Media Education: Metacognition. Media Literacy Project: Research-based monograph series.
Middendorf, Joan & Peace, John (2004). “Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking.” New Direction for Teaching & Learning. 98(Summer 2004): 1-12.
Mosco, Vincent (2005). The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace. MIT Press. [Cited in Subject/Object Blog by Steven Chabot.]
Complexity, Chaos, Emergence, and Adaptive Systems
02 years ago
by Asako
in My Partial Reflection
I took an online course on Instructional Design for Adult Education earlier this year. The cornerstone of any instructional design models is the construction of learning objectives. Everything else, such as learning support, the use of technologies, and teaching and learning resources are hinged on the clearly set-out learning objectives. Without well-defined learning objectives, you don’t have the basis for doing instructional design.
Our current discussion of complexity in education and learning starts with a different premise than the one for instructional design. In the complex, non-linear perspective, organizing, constructing and structuring of learning are left to students to do on their own. Learning is not to be designed by somebody or something external to learners themselves. Phelps, for example, conducted a noteworthy action research over 4 years in order to facilitate reflection and understanding of non-linear complexity-based learning among future primary and secondary teachers in the context of an ICT education course. Instead of directing the students to expectations of directive-style learning, Phelps focused on them “establishing self-directed and self-resposible approaches to their learning, including exploratory learning and ‘play’”. He refers us to how we normally learn in a real-life, non-institutional setting:
“Learning is usually, motivated by an activity which needs to be performed or a problem which has been encountered. Individuals seek and select information from all kinds of sources to meet their own personal needs and interests and there is always further learning which they can continue to pursue as their activities and practice develop and they reflect on their new goals.”
Phelps’ action research is an interesting case study for us to further explore non-linear, complexity-based learning. Since the course was for future elementary and secondary teachers, the concept of non-linear, authentic, complexity-based learning was introduced in that context. The course itself was about ICT education. For many subject matters and topics other than the subject of learning and learning activities, people don’t think about whatever they are doing in terms of what sort of learning they are involved in. The students are not necessarily reflective of their learning, how to shape their learning, or the choices they make in their learning activities, in terms of certain educational theories; of course, exception to this is when they are education students. In general, wouldn’t it be true to say that our course design should focus on the integration of the dialogue and sharing of how they all guide their thinking, or what the process of their making choices in their thinking among the students in the context of a given course? With this perspective, the focus would not be any fixed learning objectives or outcomes for the course.
Reflecting on the interesting research conducted by Phelps, I might be able to draw one shortcoming of CCK09. In the course, our focus is on connectivism and networking learning. While the content should not drive the course according to connectivism, all the students are connected to the course in order to understand or explore connectivism. However, from the insight I gained from the Phelps’ article, I’m inclined to think at this point that connectivism would be explored better if we have some other learning contexts for the course, and learning connectivism should be occurring as bi-products of being engaged in the contexts.
PLE’s, PLN’s & Personal Web and Leanring
02 years ago
by Asako
in My Partial Reflection
Belatedly, I listened to the recorded session given by Steve Wheller at the PLE Conference. Wheller conceptualizes the ways in which the Internet environment with rich Web 2.0 resources facilitate self-organizing learning environments for the learners by themselves. His intention of the conceptualization is obviously to influence the established institutional learning and provide some alternative thinking towards the ways to support the learners. The ultimate objective of teachers or facilitators of students’ learning is to “create conducive environments in which the students will organize their own learning.” Wheller situates the concepts of PLE’s, PLN’s and personal web in the connectivism discussion. Like Stephen Downes and George Siemens, Wheller distinguishes between the institutionalized online learning (VLE) on the one hand, and the web of learning on the other. The former is designed for students to funnel the authoritative knowledge given by the experts, while the latter, to make their own meanings through the active interactions through their webs of connections. When taking into consideration of the wider learning webs, the boundary between the formal and informal learnings become blurry. The diagram of Web 2.0 tools Weller used in the presentation shows that these tools facilitate three functions of PLEs : 1) Managing information; 2) Generating content; and 3) Connecting with others. In general, his presentation helped me to establish how the concepts of PLE’s, PLN’s and Personal web fit into one easy representation of learning, even though how learning is taking place can be very complex and highly context dependent.
While his presentation helped me visualize a snap shot of how PLE’s, PLN’s and personal web are parts and parcel of one’s learning, when he mentioned his application of Hegel’s philosophy in understanding his idea of how self-organizing learning environment takes place, or how ideas are being exchanged, I posed for a moment to locate a loose connection I may have on the subject. It took me back to what I learned about the difference between Hegel’s philosophy and Marx’s in my Sociology theory course that I took during the late 80′s. I remember from Hegel’s idealized notion of the State, Marx’s rejection of it. Also Marx’s dialectical philosophy to address the 19th century emerging social issues based on actual material productions. I apologize for getting a bit too theoretical here. However, as Stephen Downes was repeatedly asking for more specifics of the negotiations between the PLE’s and the rest of the connections, and what sort of processes are taking place in the negotiations, Wheller’s conceptualization remains somewhat abstract.
In summary, without hinting at a disruptive revolution in higher education, Weller’s conceptualization of learning in the Web 2.0 environment helps us broaden the notion of education and explore the ways to integrate Web 2.0 tools, in order for us to provide more conducive environments for learning.
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